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NX Gamer: PS5 Full Spec Analysis | A new generation is Born
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What matters is the amount of assets that can be stored in the sky and the capacity to load it.
The PS5 puts on its ultra fast SSD to do everything. So there will certainly be textures that will be used but not available in the scene.
Microsoft has never seen technologies like Sampler feedback, which will display the most important textures that the GPU will need for the scene, thus saving a lot of RAM memory and especially SSD performance, microsoft talks about 2 or 3x more gains of perf for the amount of ram memory and the ssd.
2 different strategy. same goal.
How much would be the performance difference between the 2 consoles since PS5 has faster GPU clock for all the GPU parts but fewer CUs?
It seems so, next thing I will be punching my own team mates in the face.
Exactly.
Cerny in his presentation (one of the segments was literally about this), as well as Digital Foundry in their covering video both discuss the advantages of a higher clock speed vs a slower one, eg how the increased frequency means caches have higher bandwidth, processing command buffers is quicker, rasterisation rates improve in step with the clock speed etc.
Here's the part of the presentation Cerny discusses it.
And Digital Foundry on it too.
You just sounded extremely smug in your last few console videos "yes as I predicted and said" in a certain patronising tone, which isn't a problem except 99.9% of people who've been following next gen for the past two years also expected exactly what we got lol. It wasn't some unexpected puzzle only you knew the answer to.
You seem to have ignored all the nice things I said in my last post about your content and you as a person. I really enjoy your channel and have in the past supported you so maybe chill a little mate. Just a bit of constructive criticism. Feel free to ignore it 😋
I am chill, all good dude.
If you took me as being arrogant in that video, then please take this as confirmation I am not and do not intend to sound that way. I never saw anyone predict SSD or RT in them or the Tflops, if so then hey, i am just another voice in the crowd. Thanks for your kind words and hope you still continue to watch my stuff, cheers :-)
Mods seem to agree with.
The thread about covid-19 is a wonderful place. No alarmism, no information without evidence or reliable sources, no offense between members. The guidelines are very strict. Of course it is important since it may do actual harm to human lives.
Apologies if I misread your tone then. I do suffer from Asperger's so it's entirely possible.
I maybe missed videos of yours when you were predicting things others weren't on the likes of Beyond3d, gaf, Twitter and on here. To be fair to you, your videos sometimes don't appear in my subscription feed for some reason.
Of course I will keep watching and supporting you. Keep making great content!
NXGamer Since you're in the thread, I want to take the opportunity to say I love all of your next gen coverage! Always informative and clear.
Regarding the bit about swapping out the OS to disk that you referred to in this video: you mention that the PS5 could do that because it could load the OS back in within half a second. But wouldn't the XSX be able to do the same as well, just at 2.3x as slow a pace as the PS5? A 1.2 second load time for that hardly seems that bad to me.
Also, I'm curious what you think the weaker SSD of XSX can cause in terms of bottlenecks. It's still a very fast drive at 2.4 GB/s (and presumably quite a bit faster considering MS invested in special hardware for decompression in order to make decompression very cheap), so I find it difficult to envision what issues it could run into, assuming we are staying at a 4K world and not moving on to the ludicrous 8K realm (at which point textures would balloon to 4x as much as what it is right now).
Regarding the bit about swapping out the OS to disk that you referred to in this video: you mention that the PS5 could do that because it could load the OS back in within half a second. But wouldn't the XSX be able to do the same as well, just at 2.3x as slow a pace as the PS5? A 1.2 second load time for that hardly seems that bad to me.
Also, I'm curious what you think the weaker SSD of XSX can cause in terms of bottlenecks. It's still a very fast drive at 2.4 GB/s (and presumably quite a bit faster considering MS invested in special hardware for decompression in order to make decompression very cheap), so I find it difficult to envision what issues it could run into, assuming we are staying at a 4K world and not moving on to the ludicrous 8K realm (at which point textures would balloon to 4x as much as what it is right now).
It's only tangentially a cost thing. RAM bandwidth is a function of two things: how fast the chips are, and how many data paths run from processors to the memory (bus width). Both consoles use the same speed of RAM. Sony has eight chips of 2GB capacity. All of the memory has the same number of connections, so it all runs at the same speed. Microsoft has 10 chips, 6 at 2GB capacity and 4 at 1GB. So the first GB of each chip (10GB total) can all be accessed through different traces, giving a higher bandwidth. But the other 6 GB are physically on only 6 chips, so the number of traces to pass data is much lower, amd consequently the bandwidth for that last 6GB.
Microsoft could have spent their way upward and used 10 2GB chips, and then they'd have a single speed. But it.might not have been cost that stopped them, rather than they found that 16GB was simply enough given their other design choices.
We don't know how much space either console OS will take up yet.
I wouldn't call that "likely" yet. The video is conjecturing, in reality the PS5 might have the same or lower RAM for games.
Mr. Cerny gave an example of how their I/O solution would be an 2x to 3x RAM usage multiplier versus XSX, even without tech like SFS. It remains to be seen if there's similar smart deployment in PS5.
Of course, Microsoft could do the same thing. The user would just have to live with a short delay whenever they hit the Guide button. So it's definitely not guaranteed that PS5 will have more memory allocated to games.
Hey Alex - will DF make a special video about the variable rate speed for the PS5's cpu and gpu? I'd really like to understand the pros and cons a bit more. thank you
Yup and going to be fun seeing open world games :) playgrounds fable will be gorgeous on the XSX. Also devs will have ram for the gpu running at 560gb/s to use which should be really good for effects and such
Another thing about the frequency is let's say a game only uses 8 cores, then you'll get 3.8ghz on the XSX constant vs ps5 3.5ghz variable which can only max at that freq only when gpu isn't 2.23ghz. I can see 3.2ish being the bottom for ps5 and 2ghz for gpu like GitHub shown when either are under strain and send power over to each other
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Yes interesting to see if sony do the same.
But considering how Cerny and the devs of ND talk about the use, it looks like it's more on the ultra fast raw speed than it puts and not a combination of software / hardware solution combined.
Depends if it plays all my PS4 games. I'm ready to get rid of my slim because load times are annoying as hell but currently I'm not confident that Sony will be able to do it. But we'll see I guess.
The GDC presentation mentioned multiple improvements in both hardware and software. It's just as wrong to suggest Sony's approach is "mere brute force" as it is to say that about Microsoft. Both consoles have a wide array of customizations touching every part of the pipeline.
Yes I think final DF video comparaison shows that the 2 have given a fuck to the law of moore, I hope that they will go into the most technical details.
On the topic of using the SSD speed to clear out RAM for OS when gaming, and pushing it back in when you need it:
Wouldn't it need to store the data being swapped? Meaning writing it to the SSD. Which could be a bottleneck, in terms of speed.
Have Sony (or Microsoft) said anything about write speeds yet?
Wouldn't it need to store the data being swapped? Meaning writing it to the SSD. Which could be a bottleneck, in terms of speed.
Have Sony (or Microsoft) said anything about write speeds yet?
I don't think it would need to be written on the ssd. It would always exist there in the reserved os portion. Erase it to free up ram and bring it back when you need it I think would be the way to go.
Good lord there's some mega posts in this thread! Mikey, keep doing what yer doing. Always have my support.
I'm only new to watching you videos but FWIW I have really enjoyed watching your tech videos as of late and will continue watching them moving forward. Keep up the good work. :)
So any examples of exclusive PS5 games that can give us a better idea of how they'll take advantage of the SSD? Like could they make a open world super hero game where you run or fly at super speed but can't out run how fast the console can render stuff into nothingness?
They can make spiderman gain momentum with each swing, so that if you swing with no interruptions youll be breezing through the city mega fast. Whatever developers want. A God of War boss can punch you when you reach the end and send your character back through the entire world (crushing trees and buildings) all in real time.
They need to expand and show RT at work for sure. I dont think it's gimped but perhaps not as powerful as XsX.
Imagine a God of War boss fight against Thor or Odin that is set across all the realms in real time, without cutscenes or any artifice. Or a Ratchet and Clank where you can visiti multiple planets by ship with no real time. Or again in Horizon 2 taking control of an eagle and fly across the whole map at full speed, in real time. Or a Spider-man 2 where, other than web swinging much faster, you can have a fight against Venom that starts at the base of a building, then inside various rooms, and then at the top, all fluidly without slower sections to load assets. Or an horror game where allucinations create entire different locations to walk through randomly.
And this is the very minimum, I am sure actual Sony devs can come up with more genius ideas.
I suppose it could work for the OS to basically always just kick you back to the home screen, which would be a "known" and specific set of data. But what about the game data though? When you "tab" back, it would need to know what data was scrubbed to re-fetch it. Perhaps it makes a note of the files beforehand? That could work if they remain unchanged.
I suppose time will tell. It may not even work this way.
DirectML – Xbox Series X supports Machine Learning for games with DirectML, a component of DirectX. DirectML leverages unprecedented hardware performance in a console, benefiting from over 24 TFLOPS of 16-bit float performance and over 97 TOPS (trillion operations per second) of 4-bit integer performance on Xbox Series X. Machine Learning can improve a wide range of areas, such as making NPCs much smarter, providing vastly more lifelike animation, and greatly improving visual quality.
Mesh Shading – Mesh shading will enable developers to dramatically improve the performance and image quality when rendering a substantial number of complex objects in a scene. As an example, mesh shaders could enable the player to experience asteroid belts and fields of flowers in more pristine detail without seeing a loss in performance.
^^^ That's the culling you mentioned.
Sampler Feedback Streaming (SFS) – A component of the Xbox Velocity Architecture, SFS is a feature of the Xbox Series X hardware that allows games to load into memory, with fine granularity, only the portions of textures that the GPU needs for a scene, as it needs it. This enables far better memory utilization for textures, which is important given that every 4K texture consumes 8MB of memory. Because it avoids the wastage of loading into memory the portions of textures that are never needed, it is an effective 2x or 3x (or higher) multiplier on both amount of physical memory and SSD performance.
^^^ Another "culling" related efficiency.
Variable Rate Shading (VRS) – Variable Rate Shading increases GPU efficiency by concentrating shader work where it's most needed and reducing shader work in areas where it won't be noticeable. With minimal developer effort, VRS significantly improves GPU performance resulting in more stable and higher resolutions and frame rates with no perceptible loss in visual quality.
^^^ Wasn't mentioned by Cerny. It's essentially a 10-20% perf lift.
Defining the Next Generation: An Xbox Series X|S Technology Glossary - Xbox Wire
[Editor’s Note: Updated on 10/21 at 11AM to ensure it is now reflective of the capabilities across both of our next-gen Xbox consoles following the unveil of Xbox Series S.] As we enter a new generation of console gaming with Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S, we’ve made a number of technology...
news.xbox.com
Thanks for all the examples, I look forward to seeing what Sony and anyone making PS5 exclusives can do with this.
I'm actually pretty happy to see two different approaches from these two companies this time around. A lot of people are happy about MS's traditional one that packs more power and that's great for them. But I'm more intrigued to see just how unique PS5 exclusives can be.
Mesh shading and VRS are inherent to RDNA 2 per AMD, and PS5 has the former, so despite being unmentioned there seems a good chance it has the latter as well.
It's not clear whether SFS and the "Super RPM" mentioned under the machine learning heading are features unique to Microsoft, or also a shared part of RDNA. Even without SFS, the I/O advantage for Sony would mitigate the gap in RAM occupancy metrics, though to what extent we can't say.
So did MS really screw the pooch by focusing on extra TF that will win the Digital Foundry comparisons but have marginal real-world implications, compared to Sony's crazy SSD? I realize without games to compare it's impossible to say definitively, but that seems to be the take away here.
no. It'll do better in different workloads. For RT, Xbox Series X will be ahead quite a bit even more than the TF difference suggests.
Why do you think that? My understanding is that AMD's implementation is dependent not just on cores in each CU but also on the TMUs. That means performance would be affected by clockspeed as well as core number. This would put the PS5 raytracing capability on a lower level more commensurate with the standard compute gap. That could even partially be mitigated by the fact that PS5's caches run faster, since I've seen it said that RT calculations are cache-hungry...but this is beyond my league here, so I could be misunderstanding that part.
Of course, XSX has more power than PS5 period. Whether we're talking RT or any other aspect, it means there's simply less to go around on PS5. So a game might have 20% better resolution and 20% better RT. I just wouldn't expect it to often have 20% better resolution and 40% better RT, for higher ray/pixel measures.
because RT quality is heavily dependent on number of rays cast and Xbox series X has almost twice the number of CUs which allows for more rays to be calculated in parallel.
Almost twice you say...
You could at least brush up on your arithmetic before talking about stuff you don't understand.
52-36=16
16/36=0.444
1.44=2?
almost twice the number of CUs ? Seems legit
the ssd won't get you better framerates (unless you're limited by storage bandwidth which seems unlikely with multiplatform games), nor will it get you better resolutions. we've already seen with Navi 1X that higher clocks doesn't mean better performance than cards with more CUs
Did you miss the person you quoted say that RT on AMD hardware also benefits from increased clock speed?
If Sony had a launch event and didn't mention VRS with it being so huge. Then i would say yeah you are right. But it was a GDC talk.
A developer talk, not a consumer show.
Mesh shading = PS5's geometry engine
Lastly SFS is unique
Lastly DirectML and hardware support for int 4 and 8 is unique.
Holy shit. Imagine fighting Thor and he's just knocking you around all over the entire game world, having you fight in a ton of different locales you've gone through and maybe some you haven't. And if they can properly port GTAV over, we can have instant switching between characters no matter where they are.
Xbox Series X does not even have 50% more CUs, let alone almost twice the number.
I thought it had 56 vs 32 which would have been 24 more. Still has 44% more CUs which means up to 16 more rays can be calculated at the same time as PS5 can calculate 1